Demand upon demand sincerely so Urged by the genial host upon his guest As if urbane concessions granted him, Involved the patient Indian more and more. Pressed beyond even his measure now at length, He brooked no longer to allow the toils To multiply about him which he felt Were fast entangling him to helplessness. He boldly spoke to disengage himself: "We of the East, O Publius, are not such As you are of the West. We do not count The years as you do, fixing fast our dates. We live content a kind of timeless life That moves continuous on from age to age Unreckoned. Countless generations come And go, and come and go, like forest leaves From year to year, and no one takes account Of those more than of these. Why should we? Those, As these, are ever to each other like, Harvest and harvest endlessly the same. What profit were there in a history, What history indeed were possible, Of either leaves or men? Let leaves and men Together to oblivion go; be sure There will not fail to follow leaves and men To fill the places never vacant left. "But then we Easterns are yet otherwise Different from you; for we remember more. Because we do not write our records down, We all the better keep them safe in mind. Doubtless we mix them much with fantasy: We are not nice to draw a certain line Between what we remember and what dream. All is as dream to us, for we ourselves Are dream, and oft imagination wakes Where memory sleeps; but, so the form be full, Somehow, somewhence, it matters naught to us Whether from fact it be, remembered right, Or half from fancy fitted to the fact. Our Buddha is the fair ideal man, Exemplar of the human possible. We cannot dream him fairer than he is, Or was--for he perhaps is not--and so We fling the rein down on our fancy's neck And let her freely take her own wise way. "I will not warrant you the truth of it, That is, the insignificant truth of fact, Mere fact, but if the deeper truth of fit And fair will answer you, I can relate The story of one miracle of Buddh, The sole one of the Sutta Pitaka, That chiefest treasure of our sacred texts. This, though to raising of the dead no match, Yet, to my mind, is meet and memorable, For that therewith a lovely word is joined Of tuneful teaching from the master's lips."